Lean Wide Out the Window
by chezchuckles
Summary: A pre-"Lives of Others" fic dealing with the immediate aftermath of the snowboarding accident that broke Castle's knee. From a prompt.
1. Chapter 1

**Lean Wide Out the Window**

* * *

**A/N: **I received this prompt and couldn't help immediately latching onto it. A pre-"Live of Others" idea which gives us: _some cuddly fic where we could see KATE doing all in her power to be the partner for Castle... where she leans wide out the window just to make the man she loves happy._

* * *

"That was a mistake," he says, hears it in his own voice, how the pain has made it airy and light, insubstantial. "Won't try that again."

"Yes, you will," she says back, softly, from somewhere overhead. Her fingers are hot against the cold of his skin, circle his jaw. "You'll forget all about how bad this hurts, and the next time we go skiing, you'll try it again. I know you, Castle."

He grunts, part laughter and part sharp pain, but he tries to keep it coming. For her. Because he can see how having him crumpled crookedly in the dense snowbank on the side of a mountain they were helicoptered to in the first place doesn't make her happy. Makes her think things. Things about green grass and rows of tombstones, things about screams and a bullet to the chest.

Her fingers are so warm against his skin. She takes another look at his knee and comes back to him with a grim face, eyes tight. "You're fine," she lies.

"Uh-huh," he mumbles back. His whole leg is on fire, already so swollen and hot to the touch that the snow cradling it actually feels like bliss. She's made little piles along his leg as if to brace it, and even now she carefully eases more ice along his ripped open snowsuit. That can't be good - that the slide down the mountain caused his ski pants to tear open. Can't be good at all.

"Hey. Castle, open your eyes."

He startles them open, a jerk of surprise that rebounds with agony. When did he close his eyes? "I'm awake." He blinks as snow begins to fall, flakes dusting his lashes, and he can't shake it off, can't clear his vision as it unfurls from the sky. "Sorry I ruined our vacation."

"Not ruined. I had a good time. Never tried snowboarding before," she says... lamely is all he can think to call it. Lame. She's so not convincing.

The snow is light, little fingers that caress.

He feels strange. "My leg's hot," he says finally.

"Yeah, but I'm more into your ass," she says back, giving him a brittle smile.

He laughs, a puff of air that disturbs the snow - like a snow globe - up and fluttering around her cheeks. "Thanks, I've always thought I had a good ass... You look pretty with the snow falling around you."

She tilts her head and her fingers curl around his hand. "It's not snowing."

Oh.

"Castle. That's not funny."

He wasn't joking.

"Sorry," he says instead, but she must hear the confusion that bleeds through because she curls her arm under his neck and shifts a little. His head comes to her lap and she leans over him, blocking the grey sky from view. No more snow. Just the white of her eyes.

"They've got to be on their way," she says quickly. "He said he'd pick us up in thirty minutes and that was nearly forty minutes ago."

"Good thing I broke my leg when we were mostly done," he says, trying for a smile. Neither of them find one.

"When we don't show at the bottom, they'll come looking," she says again. Like she's trying to convince herself.

His fingers are still in their gloves, insulated and flexible enough as he lifts a hand and catches the side of her face, strokes her cheek. He can't feel her skin through the neoprene, but her eyes are intent on him, demanding.

"They're already looking," he confirms.

Their phones don't work up here - of course not; that was the point of taking the helicopter to the top and snowboarding down. He picked up the sport years ago, he always feels good on the board, and she's been taking lessons for nearly the whole week, getting progressively faster, quicker, smarter - a natural. So yeah, he wanted to show off a little, show her tricks she hasn't even seen yet.

Stupid. Really stupid. It almost worked.

"Castle, keep your eyes open."

He grunts and drags his lids up, sees the frighteningly grim determination on her face. "Just a broken leg. Probably my knee. It's fine," he says, cupping her elbow where she's clutching him. "I'll be fine. Just... hurts a lot."

She nods, but even her agreement is a lie. And he doesn't understand why. It's just a broken leg; the helicopter will do a search when they don't show and the rescue team at the lodge will take snowmobiles up here to get them. She's wearing a bright red ski jacket; his pants have those reflective stripes; it's not like they'll have to camp out during the night and worry about who eats whom first.

It's fine. It's really fine. And her body is so warm at his neck and shoulders, her bare fingers against his cheek. The soft rub of her thumb over his bottom lip would be faintly erotic if it weren't for lying in a snowbank with his lower body cold and splintered with pain.

"Castle. Eyes open."

He takes a short breath as he does, surprised again, confused, trying to pinpoint the moment it happens so he won't close them again, but he can't even feel it when it goes. His lips are chapped and numb and maybe it's because she's tracing them around and around with her bare thumb - but when he checks, when he glances down at her hand, she's actually not. She's not touching his lips at all.

She has one arm around his neck, the other clutching his shoulder.

"Kate? I... feel funny." His lips are numb.

"You're going into shock," she says, her voice brittle even as her body is so strong around him. "You've got to keep your eyes open, Castle."

"Can you die from shock?" he mumbles, chest tingling, tightening.

"Yes," she says shortly, as if it's jerked from her throat. "But you're not. Keep your eyes open. Keep talking to me."

"I could tell you a dirty story," he grins, but his lips don't work right.

She grunts but the laugh pops out, a bright bubble in the cold. "Fine. Tell me a dirty story."

He feels his mouth drawing into a crooked smile but he can't find words to get past the dark leak of her eyes across his vision. Like ink spreading in water, seeking an end. How can she look both so sad and so fierce at the same time?

"Castle. How does it start?"

He blinks and the world shimmers, static in his television, snow, the soft fall of flakes...

"Castle."

"Once upon a time," he mumbles, eyes wide, trying to stay. "I mean, no. Wait. Dark and stormy night. Yeah."

She has a furrow in her forehead that smooths only slightly. "Stormy, huh?"

"Yeah. Loads of lightning. The blue flash..." The thunder in his head and his memory morphs into the rush and shiver of cacophonous sound, and he smiles up at her, relieved. "Oh, good. The boat is here."

"_Castle_."

But it's okay, it's okay, it's just the boat. "Hear it? Rough seas."

The thrum is everywhere, building in his ribs and aching behind his eyes, but he can tell she hears it too. Even through the rocking and the seasickness now roiling in his guts, she must still hear the boat. She twists, her fingers warm against his cheeks as she holds him to her, but he feels the answering tremble in her body and the slump of twin relief.

"Snowmobile, it's the snowmobile. Oh, God." Her fingers curl hard under his neck and she's moving away, leaving him to the snow and the dust of cold layering along his eyelashes. "I'm gonna flag them down. Hold on, Castle."

It's really nice here; he picked a good spot. His eyes are overwhelmed by the magnanimity of snow and he lets his mind untether from the mountain.


	2. Chapter 2

**Lean Wide Out the Window**

* * *

The pillow dips by his ear and warmth teases through his darkness, a murmur of words cresting around him and then falling, dropping off, and he's buoyed by its familiar tone, the shape of sounds that have him rising up through the water.

When he surfaces, silent, clean, he feels her hand fall to his shoulder as if to balance, and then the lean of her body away before she comes back. He slowly turns his cheek and his nose brushes her knee, finds her sitting at the head of his bed, fingers light under his collar, barely a caress.

"Kate?" But it comes out surly, rough, unlike him and he can't quite understand.

"Hey there, Sleeping Beauty," she murmurs, amusement etching lines into her voice that he hears. He closes his eyes and his mouth, swallows through the weight, the dry, the dark. Her fingers skim his jaw and his lashes flutter.

"Am I late?" he mumbles.

"Late for what?" she says softly back. The stroke of her fingers to his ear rouses him again.

"A body." The words ripple out of him and fade away.

"No," she whispers, still quiet, still out of tune, out of focus. A blur, a shading towards grey, the silky edge of her thumb at his throat. "No body. We're not even in New York."

"Hmm."

"Soon as you're stable, we can fly home."

"Mm." A breath leaves his chest and it's too nice to pause like this for him to ask for it back. Just a rest in the low tide of his breathing. Deep, heavy, the vacuum of his lungs...

Her knee nudges his shoulder and he startles into inhalation, a gasp of air that inflames his body and has him flail to hang on. She catches his hand and squeezes, and he can drop back to the pillow and clutch at his breaths, eyes wide.

Her other hand is flat over his chest at his heart, like she's waiting for it to happen again, like she's keeping track of the beats, but he's here. He's awake now.

"I know it's tempting," she says. Her voice is low, rich. "To stop. I know that feeling from after I was shot. But it's just the drugs. Makes you feel weighed down, so heavy you could just stop. But don't stop, Castle."

He nods, blinking, confused. "Why drugs?"

"Partial fracture to your kneecap while we were snowboarding. Had to do surgery. You have a couple pins that'll have to come out later."

He grunts and glances down, a mess of confusion, the darting edge of pain even with the drugs. It's gonna hurt soon. "This sucks," he sighs.

Her fingers slip along his forehead and he glances over to see her lips tugging in a smile.

"What?" he mutters.

"You say that almost every time."

"Every time what?"

"Every time you wake half-conscious and I have to tell you all over again."

He grunts but her fingers are cool and lovely along his cheeks. "It sucks every time," he sighs.

"I know," she says softly, patronizing, soothing. "I'm sorry. Sleep, Castle."

His eyes slip shut and the urgency fades, melts into the sheets.

* * *

Kate didn't expect this.

She assumed there would be a level of whininess, of self-pity and pouting, even grumbling. Every time his eyes open she girds herself for annoying Castle behavior - girds herself by giving in to the memory of being cold and so alone on the side of a mountain while he slipped in and out of consciousness.

She goes down the hall for another cup of coffee and reminds herself of how bad it might have been before she walks back into his hospital room.

She's surprised every time.

He's not sullen, but he is quiet. Riding the wave of anesthesia, perhaps, not quite all the way with her yet. It's only been a handful of hours, a too long evening, an overly bright morning, but now that he's mostly awake, his conversation is a jumble, hard to hold on to, heartbreakingly soft.

She sits in the uncomfortable chair holding his hand or she lounges across the plastic-cloth bench under the window reading from a hand-me-down paperback, and when he wakes again it's more like a slow slide into awareness. He'll mumble at first and his words are coherent but silly, still shaking off dreams, and then his eyes will find hers or his hand will tighten and he's here.

But he's not here.

She's given up on explaining where they are, why, what happened. At least until it looks like he's fully conscious. Sometime tomorrow, the surgeon promised. She can wait; she just murmurs nonsense into his ear until he drops off again.

The surgeon has checked on him every few hours, the attending physician rounds as well; the nurses are diligent and friendly and informative. Some of them have matronly crushes on him - Kate's found him to be adorable on drugs, so she doesn't blame them - and those nurses will bring her things: extra blanket, a pillow, the remote to the television, a book another patient left behind.

He's fine; he's sloughing off the effects of the anesthesia. When he's lucid again, and not coming unstuck every few minutes, she'll explain for the last time.

Honestly, she misses the pouting. She was steeled for it, she wrapped herself in that cold aloneness of snow just to get her through the immaturity of a sick Castle, and it's done its job. Too well. She wants him here, with her, present again.

But she doesn't have that; she's got a slow fading in and out again, and the leak of morning light as the sun hemorrhages into full afternoon, and really - she could really do with hearing him say her name with all the old awareness.

That would do a lot.

Kate scrapes her hand through her hair on top of her head, holds it there for an infinite moment, gathering strength as she stares into the mirror, and then she drops it like a curtain in front of her face and washes her hands, moves out of the bathroom to sit at his bedside again.

Afternoon dulls into evening.

* * *

She shakes the doctor's hand and smiles, watches him leave the room.

When she's still standing at the foot of the bed and her vision dims - like the instant before a brownout - she admits that she can't stay.

Visiting hours are over and her badge is worthless here; she wraps her fingers around Castle's ankle and strokes her thumb up his shin, glancing at his closed eyes, his immovable face.

She leaves the hospital and gets in the rental car, sits in the driver's seat with the heels of her hands pressed into her eyes just to keep it together a bit longer.

She should eat dinner. She's been running on coffee since yesterday afternoon when they airlifted him here. She rented a hotel room right next door to the hospital, but going back to it last night, she hadn't gotten any sleep. She laid awake until the dawn and then showered mechanically and showed up to wait in the lobby until visiting hours.

Winter cold seeps into the car and her fingers scrape at the ignition with the key, find it after more of an effort than is ideal, and then she cranks the engine, adjusts the vents to blow heat across her.

The shiver starts in her spine and shakes her, rattling her head on her neck as she grits her teeth through it. And then she puts the car in gear and backs out of the parking space, heads for the Denny's on the other side of the hotel.

She feels like crap and if she eats, maybe she'll be full enough to send her to sleep tonight; it might help.

The odor of grease is heavy inside the restaurant; she's shown to a booth and she sinks into the sticky pleather, presses the fingers of both hands into the tabletop to keep her elbows close to her ribs and her coat tight around her.

She had to call Martha to have Kate's name added to the approved list, to get permission to make decisions during his surgery (_nothing better happen to him in surgery; God, please) _and she spent the rest of the phone conversation convincing his mother they were just fine, everything was under control, they'd be back in New York in a week or so.

Castle talked with Alexis once right before he went into surgery, and when Kate got the phone back, his daughter was brimming with laughter, at ease and her mind put to rest. At least Castle knew enough to try his best for her, to keep with it long enough to allay his daughter's fears.

With Kate, he doesn't seem to need to try.

Which is good; how it should be.

She thinks it would be so much better if she could just get some sleep.

She's updated the boys and emailed her captain for extra time off; she's had to take paid sick leave to stretch past the vacation days. She has no one left to contact, no one left to talk to, no one.

The waitress swings by with water and a glass of milk that Kate didn't order, but she leaves it there, can't figure out how to explain. She orders scrambled eggs and hash browns that - when they come - she can't eat. The eggs are thick and sit heavy in her stomach when she tries a bite, but she drains the milk at least and feels better for it.

Kate pays and leaves her barely touched plate, pulls her coat tight across her shoulders as she hunches into the wind. She drives to the hotel next door, feels only marginally better as she steps onto the elevator. Her fingers tap against her thigh as the floors light up, one by one, until she gets out and heads down the carpeted hall to her room.

It feels wrong to be in a hotel in Colorado. Alone. _It feels wrong to be alone._

She's never before in her life had that thought.

What has that mountain done to her?


	3. Chapter 3

**Lean Wide Out the Window**

* * *

He wakes before Kate's visit, finds his eyes drawn to the window and the narrow view of winter sunlight. The sky is leaden and promises snow, but he's got two hospital blankets layered over his body and a faint drugged numbness that keeps him warm and heavy. The bed has him prone, still faintly immobilized, but he fingers the controls and shifts the head of the bed upright once more.

Kate walks in while he's eating the slushy eggs the cafeteria candy-striper brought a few minutes ago. She lifts an eyebrow to see him up already and he gives her a half-hearted shrug.

"I woke," he explains.

"You feeling okay?"

"Stomach is rolling," he admits, dropping his fork back to the tray and pushing it away.

"Probably the drugs." She angles the bedside table away from him and sits at his hip, her fingers landing on the crook of his elbow like a paperweight; she'll keep him here. She looks tired.

"You feel okay?" he asks, watching her.

"You're pretty awake," she murmurs, a crease dividing her eyebrows. "You remember what happened?"

"Yeah, broke my knee. Bummer. It hurts."

She nods and her lips twitch. "They've put you in a knee brace that keeps your leg straight; you'll have to wheelchair around."

"Cool," he grins, sees the way her chest catches on a breath. "Can I pop a wheelie, you think? Maybe with practice."

"No," she insists, her eyes darkening. "No more _tricks_, Castle. That's what got us here in the first place."

He sighs. "Right." He leans back against the head of the bead and lets it do all the work for him; he's swamped with it, the heaviness, feels it spinning slowly in his chest. "This is gonna suck."

She laughs, her fingers curling at his elbow, but light, soft. "Right. I believe you've mentioned that."

"You okay?" he asks again, realizing she never answered. Her eyes turn to his, finally, and something breaks off. Like part of her shore is being washed away and swallowed in a sea much bigger than them.

"I'm tired," she murmurs. "That's all."

"Sleep. Even though I just woke up, I probably will too," he says quickly, gesturing towards the ugly plastic-cloth bench that's pushed up against the wall under the thin window. "Appealing amenities, I know. But I can assure you it's been wiped down with disinfectant. I saw the cleaning lady do it last night when the nurse woke me for vitals."

She turns her cheek to look at it, but he thinks he saw a smile there. "Hmm, as attractive as that sounds, I think I'll just sit." She rises from his bedside, fingers trailing down his forearm. It's like she doesn't want to let go.

"You could sit right here," he fumbles out. "Maybe you'd even fall asleep on me, and me on you. We could drool on each other."

Her body is arrested, a strange yearning flashes across her face before she starts to shake her head _no_. He wouldn't have caught it if he wasn't right here, studying her for weak spots, and he reaches out with an arm that feels like lead and snags her shirt.

She reaches back and takes his hand, squeezing his fingers, and tries to put him off.

"It's cold in here," he blurts out, going with that. "It feels like a freezer. And these hospital blankets are thin. But if you sit right here beside me, on my good side, it'll keep me from getting frostbite. I swear the air conditioner is on. Don't they know it's the middle of winter?"

His whine seems to do it. She turns back to him, her hand cupping his elbow even as he still hangs on to her shirt.

"All right," she gives in. Her voice sounds like she intended to roll her eyes, but she can't quite pull it off. A little desperation leaks through her body, makes her fingers drum against his skin, makes the pulse in her neck beat hard enough for him to see. She must be really tired.

"Climb on up," he murmurs, eyeing the space beside him and wondering if even skinny Kate Beckett can-

Oh, yeah, she can. Close and tight, but she's warm and she feels good and she lays her head very gently on his shoulder.

"Knock me off if I hurt your knee."

"Knee's on the other side," he answers. "You're fine."

He tries to wrap his arm around her but she shifts onto her side and hooks her arm through his instead. His fingers are down by her drawn up legs and he slides his hand between her thighs, curls at the back of one knee to hang on to her. He doesn't want her slipping out of bed the second he falls asleep.

She lets out a breath. "Sleep if you want to, Castle."

"Sure," he answers easily. Her head comes to his shoulder again and he squeezes her knee, lifts the hand with the IV attached to comb a lock of hair back behind her ear. It gives him the excuse to trail his fingers at her jaw, a little heavy with the lingering effects of sedation, but the connection is tantalizing nonetheless.

Her eyes slip shut.

He rests his cheek to the top of her head and watches her fall asleep. He'll most likely follow.

* * *

The flight is difficult; this is the closest she's come to seeing the selfish little boy in him: a whine in the back of his throat as his leg is propped up awkwardly in first class on the seat next to him, a petulant huff as his body is contorted into the space. But she realizes after a moment - too long, it took her too long to realize - that it's just the pain.

Not grumpy, pouting Rick Castle.

He's in pain.

It knocks the breath right out of her.

She waits until the flight attendant has gone forward again, and then Kate unbuckles her seat belt from across the aisle and stands, her hand going to his shoulder in question.

"I'm okay," he says, too easily. That lightness in his voice, airiness that she heard on the mountain. Pain.

"You're not okay. The surgeon said he didn't think you were ready. Why did you argue with him?"

"I'm fine," he says. "Just want to get home." And where Kate would have - in his position - shrugged him off and frozen him out just so she could get a handle on her own issues, Castle instead reaches up and grips two of her fingers, turns his head to kiss her knuckles.

Disarming her with his charm.

She's not immune, and it does soften her, but she still sees the way the pain has etched lines into his face and has set his jaw crookedly. She leans over him and brushes a kiss to his mouth. The plane is empty; they boarded first because of his wheelchair, and now she's grateful for the private moment.

His fingers touch her cheek, but he's the one who stops their kiss first. His lips fall from hers and his head tilts back against the seat. He looks so tired. It makes her drop to her knees on the floor before him, her fingers sifting through the hair at his temple.

"You're not fine," she says again, that faint clutch of cold in her lungs again. Snow. Falling snow and the ice layering over her.

"Flight's non-stop and not that long. I'll _be_ fine," he says instead, but his head stays back against the seat, his eyes half-mast, leaning into her touch.

He's not due for a pain pill until two hours from now. And there's no way he'll sleep. He's just going to ride it out?

"Go sit down, Kate. The flight attendant is giving you a dirty look."

"Screw the flight attendant," she bites out, but she straightens up and looks behind her, sees the passengers coming in through the door.

She glances back once to Castle. His eyes are closed.

So she sits down in her seat and slides the seatbelt into place with a click because she doesn't know what else she can do.


	4. Chapter 4

**Lean Wide Out the Window**

* * *

The whining does come - the pouting - when he sees the wheelchair she rented from a medical equipment supplier waiting for them as they disembark. The rude awakening at touchdown, the necessity of being moved into the other seat produces a grumble of frustration - but she sees those things slide over him and then out once more. It's gone just like that, before she can even begin her long-suffering persona.

The drive is edgy, though Castle seems to think it's amusing she's called his car service for the limo. She just couldn't figure out a way to get him home with that stiff leg brace that makes everything a laborious undertaking. He pouts when she sits across from him instead of beside him, though even that fades quickly as the car jostles his leg.

He's white-and-thin-lipped with it, his hand clutched around the edge of the seat as if he has to concentrate to keep himself together. His eyes connect with hers in an electric moment and she can practically feel the grind of pain arcing out from him and into her.

She'll gladly take it, even if it just means listening to him complain. But he doesn't say a word.

For his daughter though, the whining comes back full force, like it's an act he's perfected and has to trot out in order to make her comfortable. Alexis hovers and makes over him, getting him pillows and blankets for the couch in the study, the remote for the television, making sure he's settled and has what he needs. Her eyes keep darting up to Kate as if to check, but Kate's perched on the edge of Castle's desk and has no idea what comes next.

"Dad, want to watch movies?" Alexis says, again with that quick look to Kate.

Maybe it's her cue to leave, or maybe just give them some space? Kate stands and studies father and daughter a moment before clearing her throat. "I'm just going to unpack everything."

Castle slides her a grateful look, that flashing smile that's only in his eyes, and she stands a little straighter, smiles back the same way. A way they've perfected, a way that feels right even if there are no words. She moves out into the living room and then takes both suitcases back with her to his bedroom, rolls his bag right into the closet and stands there a heartbeat too long.

Her body releases, tension mudsliding down through her body and draining out. She sways and sinks down, pretends it's just so she can reach the zipper on his luggage, her fingers trembling.

An early dinner. Go to bed. That's what she wants. The flight was too long and his face was a mask she couldn't breach. His daughter keeps looking at her like she should not only leave the room, but that she should leave the loft - and not even in a mean way, just in that, _I thought you'd have to go_.

It's Monday and she has a handful of sick days to get Castle settled and then what? They're supposed to go to Bora Bora for his birthday but she has precious few vacation days left and it's only March.

This isn't the time to think. Not now, not when she's on her knees in his closet trying to yank open his suitcase and failing rather epically. Kate tugs hard and realizes that the zippers lock together; she fumbles them apart and then widens the breach, lifts the lid to his rumpled clothes.

She packed them both, of course, to come back. Had to clear all their things from the lodge as he was airlifted to the hospital down the mountain. She must not have been paying strict attention; his expensive shirts are wrinkled and his pants thrown in haphazardly. But worst of all - his bottle of shampoo was tucked into the top netted pocket rather than in his dopp kit, and of course it burst open during flight.

Kate pulls things out, looking for stuff to salvage, but it will all have to be laundered if not outright thrown away. His jacket might be ruined, oh, and his shoes. She can probably dry clean the rest of it. She should ask him where he takes things, what the routine is. She vaguely remembers finding one of those dry cleaning hangers in the coat closet, still papered with the name around the wire, so she sorts everything in piles.

This is her fault; she'll clean up the mess.

She has to use the hand towel from the bathroom to wipe down the suitcase, the overwhelming smell of men's salon shampoo burning her nostrils. It feels like he's all over her, like when he's pressed deep and every gasp is filled with him.

She has to keep surfacing for deep breaths, a chance to clear her head, before going back to it. Memories like flashbacks, love like a panic attack in her lungs.

Once it's done, she leaves it there to air out and moves back out to the bedroom to open up her own suitcase. She mixes her clothes with his unspoiled ones: dry cleaner versus lights and darks that she can wash at home. Here. At his home here. She's not sure where she is, what she's supposed to do next.

And it gets to her.

She's muddled from sleeplessness, that's all.

As Kate leaves the piles in his closet, she feels a little more accomplished, better for the effort, and she makes her way into the study, something like peace finally settling over her. She finds Castle asleep with his head tilted back on the top of the couch, his arm slack around Alexis.

His daughter smiles tightly at her and slides out of Castle's embrace, gets to her feet. "Thanks, Kate."

She shakes her head. "No, don't," she murmurs, unwilling to be thanked like a guest who has been imposed upon. She's not sure what she'll do if Alexis gratefully shows her the door. "I've got our stuff unpacked, but his shampoo burst and it'll all need to go to the dry cleaners. If you can stay with him tomorrow sometime? I'll go then. Get groceries too."

Alexis's mouth opens, a flush of pink, and then her smile widens, hard and bright. "Yeah. I've got class at one in the afternoon, but I can come over and keep him company until then. Or. Or I can spend the night if you'd rather..."

"Oh." Kate was expecting her to stay, but Alexis is asking her permission - or wondering? That's not how she thought this was going to go. "I'll be here, but if you want to stay close-"

"Oh, no," Alexis rushes on. "That's good because I've got a huge test tomorrow and I wasn't sure - but I figured I'd stay here if I had to, but you know Dad... he's kind of needy when he's sick and I wasn't sure how much I could get done. But I don't want to leave him alone."

"He won't be alone. You should study. But maybe stay for dinner?" Kate offers, knots unloosening in her chest. She didn't realize it until now, but she wants desperately to finally be alone with him. "It'll just be takeout."

"Yeah, I'd like that. Takeout sounds good. Really good. Thanks, Kate." Alexis's arms wrap around Kate's shoulders, a sudden and swift embrace, over before Kate can even return it.

Castle is still asleep on the couch, oblivious.

* * *

He wakes to Kate Beckett's warm palm at his neck and his head being shifted. His eyes trace her dark outline in the dim twilight filling his study.

"Sorry," she whispers. "Go back to sleep. Just thought you'd get a crick in your neck like that."

Ah, yeah. His neck is pinched. He rolls his head on his shoulders, back and forth, and she skims her fingers down his spine, slips them under the collar of his shirt. Feels good, her fingertips cool and her hand warm, her thumb brushing across the muscles at his shoulder.

"Want some dinner? Alexis and I ordered Chinese. It'll be here in a few minutes."

"Sounds good," he mumbles, blinking his eyes to make the vision of Kate Beckett resolve. "Thanks. I wanna get off the couch."

She frowns at him, distinct enough for all his blurriness upon waking, and she stands slowly, studying him. "Okay, well the wheelchair's in here if you can shift."

"Yeah, course," he says breezily, wanting to believe it. There's a dull ache in his head that matches the pulse of his blood in his leg, but he feels like moving will pull him out of it. He'd prefer not to take the pills if he can.

When he pushes up with his fists against the couch, she makes a noise and darts in as if to catch him. He shoots her a staying glance and reaches out for the wheelchair's arm, flexes hard to drag his body over into the seat.

Doesn't quite make it.

Kate is on him, her hand under the back of his thigh and trying to lift, her panting breath at the top of his head as his body is slowly angled into the chair, almost there, and then his injured knee starts to torque.

"Ah, Kate," he bites out, pushing back, gripping the arms of the wheelchair. She stops, fingers curling at his good leg, her eyes meeting his helplessly.

"Alexis," she calls out.

"No," he growls. He bats at her hands and digs his elbow into her ribs to get her off of him, and she huffs but shuffles towards the doorway, probably to get his daughter and absolutely complete the picture of his misery.

"Alexis, can you-"

"Kate. Beckett," he says. She must hear it in his tone because she waves Alexis off and heads back for him. He's half straddling the wheelchair, half sprawled on the couch, but he is not having his daughter come move him like an old man.

"Castle, you're _stuck_. Let us-"

"Give me a second," he mutters. "I'm not an idiot."

She closes her mouth in a tight line but she doesn't try it again. He crooks his good knee and presses it against the foot pedal, half lifts himself over the arm of the wheelchair. His heart is pounding and sweat has broken out at the small of his back; he feels weak and that won't do.

Kate doesn't move. He reaches down and hooks his hands around the velcro of the brace, arranges his leg in the stirrup. Jeez, a stirrup. That's what it is.

He grips the tops of the wheels for a moment, steadying himself with short breaths, refuses to look at her.

"We'll get you a chair with lower arms," she murmurs then. "Easier to shift. My fault."

He nods shortly, then realizes what he's agreeing to and lifts his head to her. "Not your fault. You didn't have to arrange everything, but you did. I appreciate that."

She shrugs it off, that flat affect that he knows now is discomfort rather than disinterest.

He reaches out and curls his fingers around her wrist, wriggles his eyebrow. "You wanna push me into the kitchen to eat?"

"Not really," she says, voice low, mocking on her face. "But I guess if I have to."

He feels her hands come to the chair and turn him around towards the door. She starts rolling him forward and the way his leg is stuck out there makes him feel vulnerable to her direction. The door frame looms and he envisions the worst - the collide of his foot with the wood, the agony darting into his knee, the tension and twist...

"Trust me, would you?" she snorts from over his head.

He grimaces and cranes his neck to look at her, raises his hand to caress her fingers in apology. "Cursed with an overactive imagination."

"Don't I know it," she murmurs, but to his surprise, she leans down and drops a kiss to the top of his head.

And she pushes him through the doorway and down the hall, easily guiding him towards the kitchen, and hopefully, a little normalcy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Lean Wide Out the Window**

* * *

After that first day, Castle's regimen of waking for pain pills and cat-napping in the chair begins to give way to real alertness. This morning when the doorbell rang and the new chair showed up, his stunned surprise was enough to show her that he's not been exactly present for all of their conversations.

The new chair is much easier to shift in and out of; she hopes he can regain a little dignity. It still has arms, but they lower into the seat - a sleeker design, all in all - and it seems to dawn on him that he's not given Kate any kind of money - no credit card information or even health insurance stuff.

"How'd you do this?" he asks, maladroitly, the words tumbling out of him in that eager face as he rocks the wheelchair back and forth. "How'd you set everything up?"

Kate sits on the couch at a right angle to him in his chair; she reaches out and smooths her fingers over his sweatpants at his good knee, hoping to stop the endless rocking. "I've been setting things up - as you call it - since your accident."

"Oh." He looks at her like he can't fathom her. It makes her ache.

"Castle, you signed the form letting me-"

"No, no, I'm good with it. I just didn't realize. You've done a lot."

She nods and sits back just slightly, waiting on him, but she doesn't know what comes next. She's supposed to go back to the precinct tomorrow, but the boys have offered to cover until there's a call for a body.

"This one is okay?" she asks finally. She knows it is, but it just got awkward. Alexis is at a class; there's just the two of them. This strangeness has got to stop.

"This is awesome. I can move a lot easier. And you won't have to spot me as I shift."

"I don't mind spotting you," she says, letting a little heat curl in her voice. He blinks and grins, wolfish, and she stands up to lean her hands on the arms of his chair. "I don't mind watching you at all."

"Watching me," he echoes, lifting his chin to look at her. It's arousing, having him so blatantly under her, having his eyes undress her even as his hands start skimming her ribs and heading up.

There's a moment of tension, like a dare given and accepted, and then she drags him closer by the arms of the chair, avoiding his propped up leg and sliding in close.

"Kate," he breathes.

"Can I sit?"

"Oh, yes."

She grins and settles over his lap with an arm hooked around his shoulders, cautious but not hesitating, and his arms wrap around her, a content grumble coming up out of his chest. His nose nudges in against her neck, his breath deep and sharp, and she leans her cheek to his head, waiting for him to get what he needs.

She's not sure she can ever get what _she_ needs. Not now.

"How long are you staying?" he asks.

She plays the game, keeps the rest of it out of her voice. "At some point, I'll have to get up. But not for a while."

His laugh is another rumble in his chest, a little bit of annoyance at her for not being serious - what a switch. She finds herself stroking her fingers at the cotton of his shirt and won't make herself stop.

"I'm staying, Castle," she says quietly then. Her mouth brushes a kiss across his forehead, down his temple. He smells like tylenol and sleep; he tastes faintly of warm salt.

His arms tighten around her and she lifts her head once more, strokes a hand over his biceps. "Old chair might have been dangerous to maneuver around, but it's a good work out, huh?" She squeezes his arms.

He preens for her, flexing his biceps and striking a pose, growling when she wriggles in his lap. She laughs and circles her fingers over his arms, a flash of true awakening as she feels the thick and hard edge of his muscle.

Wow.

It shouldn't, but it does.

Castle presses his palms to the backs of her shoulders and pulls her in for a kiss, a little muzzy but ardent enough, his lips pushing open the seal of her mouth, his tongue stealing inside.

She feels it in seconds, the white hot flare of need like it's a stormy night in May, and she tightens her arm around his neck and surges into him. His grunt is all pleased surprise and _stay right here_ and she does, nipping at his lip with her teeth, finding his throat and tasting the hard swallow of his want.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he murmurs at her ear, glancing kisses as his hands work under her shirt in slow strokes. "Kate, you feel so good."

His wordy incantations always make her blood sing, and even perched akwardly in a wheelchair, trying to remember to be gentle, she can't help shifting to straddle him, her knees wedged tightly at his hips.

He groans this time, a warning, and she lifts, putting her weight at his good leg just in time to see the wide smile on his face as he rewards her for it. His fingers slide under her bra, his palms so broad and spanning her back, and she stares down at him, heart thundering.

"We could do it here, but it might be easier in the bed," he murmurs, smirk and love in the look on his face.

"Bed," she decides. "Try the chair later."

He grins - she knew he was thinking about it; but she also knew he couldn't possibly today after the week he's had - and his arms tighten briefly around her, palms burning her skin.

He leans in, two fingers at her sternum, and softly touches his open lips to hers, an echo of the beginning of them. "Well then," he breathes, so close. "Your chariot awaits."

* * *

Kate curls on her side and watches him sleep in the deep light of late afternoon. She should get out of bed and do... anything. Any number of things that need doing. She's on call tomorrow and if the boys get a body, she'll have to go in, and surely there are more important things than staring at Rick Castle while he's unconscious.

She can't find it in her to slide out from under the sheets. Her skin is still warm and damp where they touch, these liquid points of contact. The taste of his sharp need, the burning frustration of logistics and shifting to the bed and not twisting his leg, and then finally, finally, finally...

It's still right there; it buzzes under her skin and floats across her vision. Finally. He's sleeping hard but that's his usual, despite the mildness of their encounter due to Kate's gentleness and his handicap. Still felt good to have him, be had, still seems it was necessary to set her mind at ease, and now that she's this close to sleep, she won't deny it.

She wishes she could sleep as easily as him, as deeply. That far gone. It's been a while; her blood has been riddled with caffeine to keep her going and the harsh flicker of stimulant scratches along her nerves as she comes down.

Still she manages to drift, eyelids startling open when the ragged edge of a dream catches her mind and drags her unwillingly into a too-fast slide down the mountain. It's the snap of bone that jerks her awake each time, yanks her conscious like falling, even though that never happened; she never heard his knee crack, though she watched his head hit the ice and her guts turned inside out.

She never heard it.

Her wildly thrashing heart would beg to differ.

Kate's still in the suffocating embrace of exhaustion, can't even move to turn over, can only trace the light-limned edges of his eyelashes on the craggy range of his face, count the flecks of gold it gives him one by one until the drag becomes too much and she's sucked out by the tide.

* * *

This time it's the roll of the bed that startles her awake, heart in her throat, a noise dying on her lips.

"You've been asleep a while," his voice rumbles. Vision resolves in the next instant, Castle propped awkwardly on his side, and she stares at him too long. Long enough for him to know. "Bad dream?"

She opens her mouth and draws a hand up to her face, covers her eyes. "I don't know."

"It's nearly eleven."

"Nearly eleven what?" she murmurs. "Wait. Eleven at _night_?"

"You've been asleep a while," he says again.

She drops her hand and stares at him. "Your pills - the-"

"I got it. I wheeled myself out, took care of it. I'm okay. Alexis brought us pizza for dinner when she couldn't reach you on the phone. I found it."

"Found... found what?" She can't believe it's eleven o'clock at night.

"Your phone. It was on vibrate on the couch. That's why we never heard it."

"I... you had dinner and got your pain pill? And everything."

"Yeah. You were tired, huh?"

She nods and scrubs her hands down her face, struggles to sit up. She feels Castle beside her doing the same and she looks over at him, dressed and presentable and entirely without her help. "Sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep. I should-"

"So late now. Might as well stay right here," he chuckles, his hand coming out to gingerly brush the hair from her shoulder. Goose bumps flare across her skin and she realizes she's wearing his t-shirt. When did _that_ happen?

"You dress me?"

"I guess you did," he says, his lips creased with a laugh he doesn't let out. "Wow, you were really out of it. I'd be cocky about my prowess in bed if I didn't know for a fact we can do much better than that."

She lets out a grunt of amusement, tilting her head at him. "I don't know, Castle. We did all right. Maybe you just wore me out."

"I think I did," he says, but his voice is soft and his hand trails down the back of her arm to her elbow. "I'm sorry. You haven't gotten much sleep. And on your vacation too."

She shrugs it off, doesn't like having an apology for what's out of their control. Like she needs placating or assurances. "That wasn't it," she mutters, lifting a hand to her hair to try and scrape it off her face. It's not the _doing_ for him that's kept her awake.

"You were worried," he breathes.

She cuts her eyes to him and doesn't really love the way that seems like surprise. "Of course I was."

"About my knee?"

"About... all of it," she mutters, flopping back down in bed and throwing her arm over her face. She can still see it. "Jeez, Castle. You smacked your head on the side of a mountain on your way down. At one point, I watched you slam into a rock and _bounce_ like a pinball, off on a new trajectory, and the whole time your leg was in this... terribly wrong position."

"I don't remember that," he says, a little too eager. He props himself up on his elbow at her side as she peers out from under her arm to look at him. "I remember trying to do the trick and feeling my knee slam into the ground. It hurt."

"And then you tumbled about a hundred yards and I had to chase after you," she grumbles, lowering her arm to study him. All boy - salivating over the juicy details. He slides his hand across her stomach, rucking up the shirt, his fingertips making contrails of awareness under her skin.

"Sorry to put you out, Beckett," he murmurs, but now his grin is sliding off his face. A deeper feeling lies like a veil over his eyes and his hand stills at her ribs. "You haven't been sleeping."

"I _just _had like eleven hours-"

"Until now," he insists. His thumb makes circles around her belly button and a craving rises up in her, the urge to roll over and press her body to his so tightly she'd feel nothing else.

She doesn't answer because it's pointless, but Castle doesn't seem to need an answer. He tenses his arm at her waist and brings her back against him, awkwardly spooning, his leg in its knee brace, and he drops his mouth to her neck in a kiss that makes her shiver.

"It's eleven. Time for bed, Kate."

She can't possibly fall asleep now, but she lays her hand over his and tangles their fingers together. Her stomach makes a half-hearted protest, growling in the darkness, and they both laugh, Castle's amusement pressed into her shoulder and her own falling to the pillow.

"Want cold pizza?" he whispers. "Midnight snack."

She laughs again and shakes her head. Now that Castle's here, she won't move him off. "Maybe later."

"Ooh, early breakfast. I like the sound of that." His arm tightens around her and she shifts, feels him trying to get comfortable too. "Stay just like this," he sighs.

She stills, his fingers curling at the curve of her stomach, stroking absently, and Castle finally seems to settle. He lets out a long breath that sounds more shaky than she'd like, and she wishes she had turned over so he would lay on his back.

His other hand comes up and brushes the hair from her neck, a broad palm and the sweep of fumbling fingers, and then he lays a kiss just at her hairline, a place she doesn't think he's ever kissed her before, like that, off-center from her spine.

"You smell good," he murmurs, and something of the drowsiness in his voice travels straight through her.

Their positions are awkward and he can't be that comfortable, but she doesn't move, doesn't roll away, only breathes with him in the darkness until it becomes a part of dreams as well.


	6. Chapter 6

**Lean Wide Out the Window**

* * *

Castle flinches at the alarm and groans as it radiates down through his body like a hot poker. Kate is already untangling herself from him with apologies as she clambers over and off the bed, snatching up her phone.

It's the phone. Her phone. It's the 12th. She's already grim and closing her eyes against it as she speaks to Ryan.

He slumps back into the mattress and tries to slow the rapid thump of his heart which pushes blood too hard through his leg. He feels it. He feels it brutally and he wishes her damn phone had never rung because then he would still be asleep and unaware of the ache but still warm with her.

"Sorry," she murmurs again. He feels her mouth brush his forehead. "Sorry. I have to go."

"I'll be fine," he says automatically, because he doesn't want to guilt her into sticking around when - as last night proved it - he can clearly function on his own. "I'm good."

He feels the cool relief of her fingers down the side of his face and opens his eyes to watch her shuck off her t-shirt. The seams have pressed lines into her body, places the material folded under her where she slept so hard, and she has a crease in her cheek from her pillow. Her hair is flat and straggling over her shoulders, her elbows and knees hard points in the grey, pre-dawn light.

She goes into the bathroom and doesn't shut the door; he hears the shower cut on first, the water pounding into the tile without obstacles, and faintly he listens to the sounds of her morning routine.

He must drift off because the next thing he knows, she's hovering over him and her hair is dripping wet against his chest, one drop at a time, making a wet spot at his sternum. He stares at her, not comprehending.

"I have to go in. Are you okay?"

"I'm good," he rasps, winces at the sandpaper in his voice. His mouth tastes funny.

She runs her fingers up his arm and rubs her thumb over his ear lobe. "You don't look good."

"Well, thanks," he says dryly.

"The bottle of pain pills is right here. And I got you a glass of water and your coffee."

"Oh," he startles, glancing over at the bedside table. His mug and a glass, the bottle, a paperback book he was pestering her about in the hospital. "Your book."

"I finished it. You'll like it."

He doesn't want to read. He wants to... something. "Okay."

"I'm sorry," she says again, and she looks so contrite that he sighs, can't do it to her.

"I'm fine. I'll just be sleeping anyway," he assures her.

She doesn't move, one hand planted next to his head, her hair still in a wet rope over her shoulder. She's braided it, and the dark stain of water mars her shirt as well. He's never seen her so indecisive.

He lifts his hand and wraps his fingers around her wrist near his head, turns to press a small kiss to that so-soft skin there. "Go, Kate. It'll be boring around here. Text me the interesting stuff. The Beckett-flavored stuff."

She gives him a small smile at that, and then swiftly leans over him, kisses him with tongue despite his morning breath, despite the way the pills make his mouth dry, despite everything. Deep. Thorough. Breathless.

And then she slides her hand out of his grip, fingers tangling for just a second, and she's gone.

* * *

He wakes from a dream about deadlines and broken fingers to the click of the door closing. His head is heavy on the pillow and he realizes the weak winter sunlight has crept over his face and wormed its way under his eyelids.

He groans and realizes he actually heard his front door close and he lifts on his elbow, rubbing a meaty hand down his face. He feels awkward and graceless and it's got to be nearly eleven if the sunlight is this far across his bed. When he turns and scans the room for clues, he sees the ragged-edged notebook paper propped up on his bedside table.

Castle forgets and tries to roll towards it, gasps when his knee torques against the movement. He groans and flops back onto the bed, breathes deep to push past it - he's not taking more pills, the pills make him too fuzzy - and then when the pitching black recedes, he sits up again. Carefully.

He manages to snag the paper and flips it open one-handed, reads his daughter's round, carefule print. _Dad, Stopped by after class but you were asleep. Hung around until my chem lab. I'll see you tonight for dinner. Kate said she thinks she'll be back by six. Love you._

It's not signed, but there's a little heart instead of an 'o' in _love_ and it makes him smile anyway. He wishes she would have woken him up; he's not sick. They keep treating him like he's sick. It's just his stupid broken knee, and then the pills knock him flat - steamrolled - and so it just maybe looks like he needs careful handling.

But he doesn't.

However, it _is_ eleven o'clock in the morning and he's still in bed. He needs to get the meds out of his system and then he'll be okay; he can participate in his life again. He'll do his best to hold off on taking them today, maybe a half if he can't sleep tonight. He won't be stupid about it.

Castle lets his hand fall slowly back to the mattress, Alexis's note in his fist, and he blinks up at the strange shadows slicing across his ceiling. His body is heavy, the blankets making him hot, and he really should get up. It's nearly lunch time.

Well, he's already here. Maybe he could just sleep it off. Maybe he could close his eyes and rest a second more and then be ready for the day.

* * *

When she calls at lunch - late lunch - she gets a grunt for a greeting and a slurred question that she doesn't understand.

"Castle, are you still in bed? Were you asleep?" she murmurs, turning her back to the break room door and checking her watch. It's nearly one in the afternoon and the boys stopped to get take out.

"Sleep," he mumbles. "Yeah, what time's it?"

"Twelve-fifty," she sighs. "Have you had anything to eat?"

"Uh..."

She checks her watch again like it will say something different this time, and then she glances out the window towards the bullpen. They're waiting on a warrant and the results of a lab, they're in the middle of tracking down suppliers of men's black dress shoelaces, and she doesn't really have free time here.

"I think I fell back asleep," he says, sounding surprised.

"Okay, look. I'm going to run by Julio's and grab you some lunch. Just - stay there."

"No, I'm - you're in the middle of a case."

"It'll have to be fast," she agrees. "So unless you want to eat in bed, be ready when I get there."

She's already moving towards her desk, shouldering the phone so she can have her hands free as she grabs her wallet and keys, checks her weapon. She sees Gates watching her through the glass and Kate lifts two fingers, but of course it's going to take a lot longer than two minutes.

Gates gives a brisk nod and Kate's shrugging on her coat awkwardly as she heads for the elevator. Castle hasn't said a word in the time since.

"Castle? I'm hanging up now."

"Wait."

She punches the call button repeatedly; she needs to text the boys to cancel her order. It'll be lunch rush even at two in the afternoon, but Julio's won't be quite as bad. No one's discovered it.

"Castle?"

"Uh. Just. Can you get me roast beef on rye?"

"Yeah," she says softly, steps onto the elevator. Her signal dips and weakens, but she adjusts her coat, pockets her keys. "You get tomato, pickles... hm, no onions."

"But I like-" He goes silent for a heartbeat in which she can practically see his face. "I thought you said quick, Detective Beckett."

"Yes. But I also said be ready. You can do quick if you try hard enough."

She hears his chuckling crisp on the phone even as she loses reception. She can't help the lift of her lips as she brings her phone down and pulls up her messages. She types with her thumbs as the elevator deposits her in the lobby.

_On my way. You're lucky I'm letting you have the pickles._

* * *

"I really don't have a whole lot of time," she murmurs to him.

Castle nods, her hair sliding at his cheek. Feels good. "I get it."

"I was mostly kidding," she whispers.

"You can eat in the car on your drive back," he hums at her skin.

She sighs. "I walked."

"Mistake, Beckett," he chuckles. He feels her fingers skirting his abs, already so quick to get under his shirt, and he flexes his hips in the wheelchair to hear that little caught-gasp of surprise come out of her mouth.

"Big mistake," she sighs.

She grazes his nose with her lips and moves to his other cheek, sucks lightly before her teeth nip. She's playful and a little pliant in his lap, and he wishes his leg wasn't stick straight in front of him, wishes she would straddle him and give them both a little afternoon de-

"I need to leave," she sighs. Her forehead drops to his shoulder, her fingers drumming against his shoulders for a second. "I don't want to, but-"

Her phone vibrates again on the kitchen counter and Castle figures out how to be the better man. He puts his hands on her hips and nudges her; he doesn't really have the leverage to push her away but she gets the hint.

Kate sighs again and lifts her head, her hair falling down from the bun she must have put it in this morning. He can't resist leaning in and kissing the sweet near-pout of her lips, and she opens for him immediately, eager to be irresponsible.

"No," he mumbles. "Be good."

"I am, I will. I am." She shifts now and slides slowly off his lap; he schools his features to keep her from knowing how badly that hurts him, the drag of her thigh over his leg, the weight of her pushing just a little too hard.

"Eat on the way," he reminds her. His sandwich is unopened on the dining room table, hers still in the bag, and he rocks the wheelchair forward to grab it. She's on her feet now, combing her fingers in her hair as she reorganizes her bun, but she does take the bag from him when she's done.

"How do I look?" she says, a lightness to her voice that sounds false.

"You look regretful," he says too honestly. "And sexy. But that might just be me projecting."

She does laugh at that, leans over to kiss his cheek, her hand curling at the back of his neck. "You eat too, Castle."

"I am. I will," he echoes. But he will; he's already hungry. "Alexis said six?"

"Alexis said... oh right, yes. Well, maybe a little after now," she says, pressing her lips into a flat, unhappy line. "Maybe more like seven. I'm swinging by the dry cleaner's to get our stuff."

"You don't have to-"

"I gotta go," she interrupts, leaning in again to kiss him a little harder, comes back for a second with her eyes open this time. She lingers with this one, her lips brushing his and her breath curling warmly with his. "I gotta go."

"Go," he insists with a laugh, pushing on her. It only causes his wheelchair to roll back - he forgot to put on the brake - but it does the job. She chuckles and rises to her full height, magnificent and warriorlike, and then she blows him a kiss on her way out the door - looking like Grace Kelly with that one flirty gesture.


	7. Chapter 7

**Lean Wide Out the Window**

* * *

He and Alexis have already started dinner when Kate falls into the loft that evening. She's stumbling over plastic bag-draped clothes that she picked up from the dry cleaner, but she lets everything drop to the floor. Castle tries to rise and help her, and he forgets, twisting his knee.

Damn it.

"Stay," she mutters. "Stay there. I got this."

"I'll help," his daughter says quickly, jumping up from the table. Good girl.

He tried to make dinner for them, but the chair is too short for working cleanly in the kitchen and he didn't trust himself to stand without the aid of... something. Because of that he ordered crutches from the medical place Kate used - that will help - and they're supposed to arrive first thing tomorrow.

He watches Kate and Alexis take the bundles of laundered clothes back down the hallway and he sighs, rubs a hand over his face. He feels the headache sharply behind his eyes and drumming at his temples; he's had it all day and only when he's let himself fall asleep has it subsided. But he doesn't want more sleep.

He's picked at his dinner; he only ate half the sandwich she brought for him from Julio's, and despite their afternoon interlude and its pleasant diversion, he didn't have it in him to keep chewing. It just takes too much work. He's tired of work.

"Hey," Kate calls out. He lifts his head and sees her crossing the living room towards him, Alexis behind her. "I hope you weren't waiting on me?"

"No, no," he assures her. "Alexis made us spaghetti."

"You've barely touched your plate, Castle," she murmurs, leaning over to drop a perfunctory kiss to his cheek. And then her lips turn towards his ear with a so-soft brush, raw and beautiful, just for him. "Please eat."

He scrambles for words, for sense after that too-quiet plea, and he tries giving her a lift of his lips in smile. "I had a late lunch," he reminds her.

She stands upright with a grin that looks like relief, her lips wide and happy, and she curls her fingers at his neck, stroking, her body coming in close to his in the chair. "That's right. Me too." She says it like it's a secret, and then flashes him another smile. "I'm gonna get a plate and then we'll finish dinner."

It sounds light, but he hears the command in her voice and sighs, giving Alexis a look. She shrugs at him but he knows they were comparing notes back in the bedroom. He could practically see their mutual resolve to bully him as they came back through the living room.

"Okay, Castle, stop glowering. We gang up on you because we love."

He goes very still, very quiet, hand trembling on his napkin, but she doesn't seem to even _realize_ what she's said. Alexis quirks an eyebrow at him - she must notice his unnatural frozen state - but she shrugs and sits down at the table. Did _no one_ get that? What she said?

Kate comes back to the table with her own plate, a glass of white in her other hand, and she nudges the chair back with her hip, sinks into it. Her smile is still half crooked on her face, and she gives him a quick look, questions in her eyes as she pulls a knee up and takes her fork.

"How was the case?" he blurts out. Anything to avoid tripping clumsily back over _because we love_ and she takes the bait.

"Boring, mostly. I promise. You wouldn't have been there even if you could have," she assures him.

Still, she launches into the details and they're talking easily about the case, Alexis inserting questions so that it truly is all three of them, not exactly appropriate dinner conversation but about as classy as it gets in his home.

They smooth right over her careless observation, the truth of it behind the joke, but it sticks with him, won't let go.

_because we love._

He thought so. He thought so. But it's nice to have validation.

* * *

Kate can see that Castle is restless tonight in a way he hasn't been since before he broke his knee, and that makes her happy. He keeps roaming around in the chair, which at least gives him practice with it, but Kate stays firmly on the couch with a book until Alexis gives up trying to entertain her moody father and goes back to the dorm.

When they're alone, Kate takes a long look at him, debates what happens next in her head, and finally decides she's had enough.

"Come on, Castle. Bed time."

"But I'm not tired."

"I know. You slept all day. But I'm tired and I don't want you smacking your leg into the furniture while I'm trying to sleep."

He sighs but she sees a little flicker of amusement drift across his eyes. Kate lifts from the couch, drops her book over his shoulder and into his lap as she reaches for the handles of the wheelchair to push him forward. He grumbles something and clutches the wheels to stop her, tilting his head back. He opens his mouth to say something - probably another refusal - but she leans over him and drops a kiss to his lips, upside down and light, tasting peculiar, tasting familiar, but everything not as it should be.

He hums and his fingers are snaking through her hair at the back of her neck, tugging, and even though it's an awkward angle, the way his tongue searches out her mouth makes her want to see what else they can do like this.

A sudden breath and the nudge of his nose breaks them apart; she blinks and straightens, pushing his wheelchair towards the back bedroom even as she tries to still the thundering of her heart. The wheels slide noisily through his fingers; he's not quite holding on but letting the friction build, and it calls to a need in her that she tries to tame.

Kate leaves him parked beside the bed to make the transition while she brushes her teeth, refusing to watch and demean him further, but wishing the mirror was angled a little more so she could see him, make sure it's not too much of a struggle.

She rinses and goes to the bathroom, washes her hands, pulls off her dress pants and unbuttons her shirt. When she gets back to the bedroom, Castle is already laid out in the bed with a hand at his head, massaging his temples with thumb and forefinger, eyes shaded.

Kate watches him a moment, long and unguarded since he's not looking at her, and then she pulls on a soft jersey shirt and boxers, crawls to a sitting position beside him. He sighs and his arm drops, his hand resting on her stacked knees, eyes slow to open.

"You have a headache?" she asks. Can't help asking. Her hand travels without her say to stroke the flop of hair off his forehead. His eyes close again.

"Yeah."

"You didn't take any of the pain pills," she notes. She guessed maybe that was it - why he was so restless and rolling around the loft after dinner. "Makes you tired?"

"Yeah. I slept the whole day away."

"Sorry," she says, can't figure out why she's apologizing. And so much. Every other sentence out of her mouth.

"I'll live," he says shortly. Even though his hand is on her knees, he doesn't really feel _with_ her. Present.

"Here," she says, briskly. An idea. "Come here." She slides her arm under his neck and shoulder, tugs him into her lap with his help. He makes a noise of appreciation and she straightens one leg out at his shoulder, leaves the other crossed to pillow his head. He's squirming into her now, eyes fluttering open as he grins up at her.

"I like this."

"I'm sure you do," she says dryly, but the smile tugs an answering one from her lips. "Close your eyes."

He complies happily, hands folded at his chest, his braced knee a beached whale in the bed. Kate strokes the sides of his face with her fingers, smoothing the lines at his nose and mouth with her thumbs, over and under, around and down. The tension in his body unravels, cord by cord, as she touches him.

"What're you doing?" he murmurs.

"For your headache," she says softly. "Hush."

He shuts up, but his lips part as his jaw goes slack. His lashes fall against his cheeks delicately, more delicately than they should for a man with such presence and those rugged features, his big hands. She spiderwebs her fingers across his cheeks and forehead and then she presses her thumbs into his temples slowly.

His body melts like wax in a flame, liquid in her lap, and she makes short circles at his temples, rolling the skin and the blood vessels below, easing the pressure that's built up in his head. She brushes her fingers along the sides of his face as she circles his temples with her thumbs, over and over, watching him totally and completely relax.

She feels it first at her thighs, and then hears the rumble vibrating in his chest. He probably doesn't even know he's doing it, and it makes her smile, makes her open her mouth and say it before she realizes she's saying it.

"You like that, kitten?"

"Oh, no," he groans, eyes flashing open.

She laughs, feels a little helpless because she promised herself she wouldn't, she really wouldn't use that nickname - not _now_ at least - and yet there it is.

"That's not funny," he grumbles, trying to lift.

"It's - oh, it is funny," she says, bracing his head between her hands to keep him there. "It is, because now I _see_."

"I do not _purr_," he mumbles.

"Apparently, you do."

"Shut up."

He struggles again, but she's got him, and she tries to stem the laughter, tries to hold him in place. "No, no. Come on. I was helping. Lie down."

"You were drugging me with your - _witchy_ fingers - blocking blood flow to my brain and trying to kill me, make me brain dead, I know your game."

"Lie down," she soothes, pressing her lips together to keep the laughter back. She knows her voice is tinged with it, but his grumbling is mostly good-natured and he really has nowhere to go. His head falls back in her lap, shoulders hunched, but she strokes her hands down his chest and up, frames his face so she can rub her thumbs over his cheekbones.

He's still taut with it, but she works him slowly, firmly, until she's making circles in his temples once more, humming back to him because she kind of wants to hear him make that rumbling again. Like a big cat purring, a lion lounging in the sun.

He yawns suddenly, face cracking with it, and she sees pink tongue and teeth, and then his nose rubs against her thigh on a sigh. She strokes the side of his face even as his body begins to melt again, and then she goes back to pressing her thumbs into his temples, easing his headache.

He's asleep in minutes, heavy in her lap, and she lets herself stay awake too long touching him, fingers mapping the contours of his face and skiing the slope of his throat, splaying out over the cotton of his t-shirt and back again. His mouth parts with a breath, his face half-turned into her, and she leans slowly back against the headboard and closes her eyes, hands still cradling his head.

* * *

He wakes disoriented and hot to the feel of her kiss cool on his forehead.

"Going in to work. Sleep."

He obeys even though he doesn't want to.


	8. Chapter 8

**Lean Wide Out the Window**

* * *

He texts her at noon but doesn't hear back, so he calls at one. She answers a little breathless and sounding like she's dived deep into something, her words distracted and choppy.

"Was wondering about lunch?" he asks, already knowing it's a bad idea. He shouldn't have called.

"Um. Yeah. Hold on." He gets the muffled noise of her hand over the mouthpiece as she speaks to someone else, the sharp edge of a command, and he realizes it was poor taste to call and ask.

Impolite, really, because he's putting her in a spot where she feels she _has_ to entertain him, or make sure he's okay, and he's fine. He woke at nine and even did a little writing, talked to Alexis on video chat while she walked to her Pysch class, and then he even managed some practice with the new crutches.

He feels sweaty but accomplished and he wanted to share but he should have known better than to-

"Castle. Hey. Want me to pick us up some Remy's? I could use a burger."

"If you're swamped-"

"I just cleared my desk. Good timing."

He pauses, mind racing through all the possibilities, all nuances to her inflection of every word, and for the life of him, he can't sense a single iota of sarcasm or frustration or even just putting up with him. "Okay. Remy's is good."

"Milk shake?" she murmurs. It sounds like she's putting on her coat; he can hear the scrape of fabric across the mic in the phone, the noise she makes when she's got her arm tangled in the sleeve and pushes through.

Why does he know that? It feels odd to know that noise, feels intimate in a way that sharing a bed and touching her skin is not.

"Castle? You with me?"

"Yeah," he rasps, nods to himself as he blinks through a strange revelation. "Yeah, I'm with you, Kate."

"So. Strawberry, chocolate, banana-"

"Can you have them mix chocolate and banana?"

"Course. The usual?"

"Yeah. But pepperjack cheese."

"Oh? Hmm, don't know about that."

He laughs because it surprises him, the heat in her voice and the tease, and yeah, it's no different than the last few weeks - her willingness to be here with him - but he still expects her to be too busy to stop. Too busy to tease, in a hurry to get back.

"Be there in about twenty, Castle."

"Yeah," he says, snapping back to the present. "See you then."

Everything she does only affirms what he's known, what showing up on his doorstep soaking wet and jumping him means - _because we love._

He's a man of words, but she tells him so much more without.

* * *

"You should go," he says, using his _foot_ to nudge her away.

"Stop that," she grumbles, trying to angle around the straight poker of his leg. She laughs and sidesteps him again. "Castle."

"You need to go. Stop hanging around here," he grins back. She can tell he's delighted she's hanging around though.

"I really do need to go," she sighs.

"I told you. I can hear your phone even when you put it on vibrate, Beckett."

"Your spidey sense again?"

"Don't need it. I think it must be in your coat pocket with your keys?"

She flinches and pushes her hand into the pocket of her coat as it hangs over the couch, finds her phone right up against her keys, like he said. So he could hear the phone vibrate and jangle the keys and of course, she knows it's probably been going off since she got here.

"I think we have a break in the case," she apologizes. She glances through the loft windows at the darkness beyond, the city breaking up the night with its restless energy and neon lights. Well, no. No neon in Castle's neighborhood, of course. She brought him lunch yesterday but skipped it today in favor of getting home early, and now she's torn between finishing up the case and staying in with him.

"Go, Kate."

"I'm going," she mutters, shooting him a dirty look. But she stops trying to engage him in that chair, instead moves back for her coat hanging over the couch. He's watching her with his hands resting on the wheels of the chair.

"I'll just be here practicing on my crutches."

She pivots on her heel. "No. Castle. Come on."

"I'm getting good," he proclaims.

"Castle. Not while you're alone. Please. Because I don't want to have to worry about you doing some other stupid thing-"

"It wasn't stupid. I just lost my balance," he grumbles.

"At least Alexis was here," she sighs. "But I'm leaving you alone tonight and I don't want to come home after putting a case to bed only to find I have to put _you_ to bed as well."

"Oh, but you do such a good job," he says, voice lowered into that sexy range that makes her shift on her feet. She glares at him for it, hands pushed into the pockets of her coat, but she can tell she's hit a brick wall with him. He won't make that promise to stop using the crutches when the crutches give him freedom.

He wants so badly to come with her, but he really _can't._ Not even on crutches.

"Okay, Castle," she gives in. "But if you end up in the emergency room, you better not be calling me."

He's beaming up at her now, like she gave him permission, but she doesn't try to argue with that. She just maneuvers around his wheelchair to brush her hand over his back and kiss his cheek. He turns his head and touches her lips, makes it a little more interesting though not impossible to resist.

"I'm fine. Go catch a killer."

"They said the warrant came through," she admits, lifting up again.

"_Go_, Beckett. Don't make me shove you out the door with my bad knee."

She laughs a little, feeling marginally better about leaving him, though no better at all about how alluring the case is, how it siren songs to her just outside the loft.

She itches to go.

"Go."

"I'm going."

* * *

He's asleep when the rowdy, noisy bunch of them come tumbling through his door, but he orients swiftly. He didn't mean to fall asleep; he was waiting on her.

She stumbles to a stop with her grin plastered wide on her face as she finds him on the couch, but instead of a sharp question, instead of the crumbling frown of concern, she grins wider and comes to him, Esposito and Ryan at her back.

Kate practically bounces on the couch beside him, hooks her arms around his neck and leans in to thoroughly, devastatingly, kiss his mouth. She tastes like the good whiskey and faintly of dark chocolate, which means celebrating, which means The Old Haunt. Without him.

She pulls back even as Ryan and Espo are finding awkward places to stand in the living room, and Kate sits back, arms still at his neck, her smile a little softer now but no less proud.

"We got him," she murmurs. "Processed and in holding and the DA loves me."

"The DA really does love her," Esposito grumbles.

Castle laughs because all three of them are a little buzzed, but Kate shifts on the couch and settles in close to him, their shoulders touching as she looks up at Kevin and Javier.

"Tell him," she demands. "Tell him how it went."

"She's making _us_ tell you because she's so modest," Ryan snorts.

"She figured it out," Esposito sighs. "I hate her a little."

"You and me both," Castle says, because he knows what that means. Knows how watching her solve a case, that moment of breakthrough, gives Kate something breathlessly arousing - an aura.

Wait. Espo _better_ be keeping his eyes to himself. "The DA loves you? Which DA?"

All three laugh at a shared joke, eyebrows and smirks and the camaraderie he's not a part of.

Castle shifts on the couch to adjust his leg, but Kate's fingers are running over his forearm and circling his wrist, incredibly distracting.

"So. How did it go?" he asks, nudging them out of their post-celebratory drink let-down.

Ryan is the first to talk, sitting down at the very edge of the chair as he starts. Espo crosses his arms and stands sentry just behind him, throwing in words every now and then, making little digs, and Kate just presses her side against his, stroking the top of his thigh and fiddling with the velcro on the brace, like she's excited and still humming with energy.

There's something about a foot chase and a bad-ass Beckett, and his mind is already overactively concocting details, scenarios, a vivid visual of her hair flying and her coat unbuttoned and her weapon in that two-handed grip that makes him think about dirty things.

They got the guy.

He gets Kate.

* * *

"No, I have all day with you," she promises, crossing her fingers behind her back. "Want a sponge bath?"

He laughs hard and slides an arm around her waist from his position in the wheelchair; she leans in and rests her ribs to the top of his head, a strange embrace.

"A sponge bath, huh?"

"Yeah," she grins. "Could be fun."

"Could be," he gives nothing away. "Or you could spot me on my crutches?"

She sighs and sinks down a little, kissing the soft skin at his temple. "You're killing me with those crutch runs."

"I've been racing with Alexis," he admits to her. He doesn't even look ashamed.

"I know," she mutters, choosing instead to drop into his lap without warning him. She sees that flicker travel across his eyes, a bracing for pain, but it must not come this time. "She told me. She tells me things."

"That's not fair," he mutters into her neck. His sharp inhale feels like relief, but it also sends scattered messages down her body, awareness flaring.

"We share," she needles him. "She totally tells on you. Every time."

"You've enticed my daughter into conspiracy against me and it's not sexy at all," he grumbles. But the way his lips brush hot fire at her throat and collarbone tell her he thinks it's so very sexy. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's nice.

"Conspiracy to what?" she chuckles, tries to keep the breathlessness out of her voice. "You think we're plotting to murder you in your sleep?"

"Could be. Who knows what nefarious plots you have in mind?"

"I had one nefarious plot that you seemed to skip right over there, Castle." Her fingers stroke at the back of his neck and down inside the collar of his robe. He's not wearing a t-shirt under it and it's all hot skin and the resistance of his shoulder muscles as he moves to hold her harder.

"Oh, yes. Sponge bath. I see what you're doing. Trying to divert me from my chosen path."

He must feel good, if he's foraying this far down her shirt with that mouth. Whew. Okay. "You better be diverted, because if you're getting me worked up for nothing, I really am going to murder you."

"You getting worked up, Beckett? I didn't notice."

She curses at him and grips the back of his neck, angles him to kiss her with a rough flash of irritation that has more to do with chair and less to do with how far his hands have gotten into her pants.

"Sponge bath," he gasps, face that alive and curious wonder. "Yes. Let's - you said all day?"

"Waiting on autopsy results. Won't be till morning," she promises.

But his face shifts into a pout. "I'm missing everything."

"You're... missing what?"

"The whole _case_."

"I've texted you," she defends.

"The last I knew you were doing paperwork on that other guy. Now there's an autopsy on a body and I don't even know what _happened._"

She closes her mouth and frowns. "Are you really... put off because you missed the body drop? Because Castle, your hands have stopped. And that's not smart if you still want a sponge bath."

He wriggles his fingers and she gasps, not expecting _that_ or that close, and he grins.

"Whoa," she breathes. Been a while. She's been so careful, tried to be so patient, and now she's squirming on his lap and chewing hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from dragging him bodily to bed. "Okay. That's... good. Can't be that mad if you're..."

His mouth catches her jaw and skims to her ear. "I'm bummed I'm missing all the good cases. Last week it was the four guys from the shipping company and body parts winding up _all over_ New York and I can't believe I missed you taking them down."

Why is it _hot_ to hear the details of gruesome murder investigations in her ear like this? It's not. It's just been a while and he's been a little passive because his knee hurt him and now his voice is molten and his hands know exactly - oh, exactly - what to do.

"Castle, just..."

"Just what, Detective?"

"I promise more detail if you'll just..."

"Like this?" he murmurs and she closes her eyes, heart thumping. "Yeah, I know what you like. You know what I like?"

Everything goes still and it takes a second for the tunnel of her arousal to unnarrow, widen out again, and she stares at him dumbly, unable to process _why_ he's stopped.

"I like murder investigations, Beckett. I like _you_ and murder investigations and how we spin a theory - it's almost dirty."

She blinks and lifts off his lap, untangling from those promising, teasing hands, her fingers dragging down the lapel of his robe to tug unmercifully. He rolls a little towards her - he forgot to put the brake on again - and she presses a fierce kiss to his mouth.

"I know what you like," she murmurs, trying for a little payback. "I'll do my best to recount every single sordid detail. In your ear. With every gasp. Now - Castle - come with me."

And oh yes, she meant it like that too.


	9. Chapter 9

**Lean Wide Out the Window**

* * *

Castle grins like a champ and crutches past her, showing off.

"Fine, fine," she sighs, tossing her book down onto the couch. "You're so accomplished. Now sit down before you give me a heart attack."

"Why? I'm so good at it now. I can really move, Beckett. And it's fun - it's like in the stairwell when you swing down the last five or six steps-"

"Please tell me you don't do that."

"I... do that. You don't?" He gives her a mock horrified look. "Beckett. Come on. Where's your sense of _fun_?"

"Breaking my neck doesn't sound fun," she says, scathingly. "You really swing down the last five or six steps?"

"Yeah, you just grip the railing pretty hard and launch yourself-"

"Castle, I get the physics." Kate can't help the tremor of her voice and shuts her mouth until she can control it again. "Don't you think one broken knee is enough?"

"Yeah, but who says I'll break something?"

She just stares at him, but it's not that he's a klutz. Oh, he can be clumsy enough when she's got her fingers wrapped around his tie and leading him straight back to the bedroom, but once he's there, he's as sure and certain and accurate as any athlete. But.

"You gotta do more stuff just for fun, Beckett," he chides. He crutches his way towards her and removes his support, flops down on the couch beside her with his leg sticking straight out. He gives her those devilish and inciting eyebrows. Smug. Cocky. She really loves him like this.

She used to _hate_ it. When did this happen to her?

"Fun," she repeats dryly.

"Be a little ridiculous on the stairs. Have a crutch race with me."

"I can't believe you ordered two pairs of crutches _just_ so-" She stops, rethinks that even as Castle waits on her to get it. "Okay. I can believe it."

He grins.

She'd like to slide over into his lap and taste that grin, because there's fun and then there's _fun_, but actually.

He's right.

Kate leans forward, knocks his crutches to the ground and just out of his reach, and then she heads for the entry way and that second set. A laugh bubbling up when he finally seems to get it.

"Whoa, hey! No fair. You're _cheating_ in crutch races!"

She lets the laugh fall right out and swings the wooden crutches under her arms, pivots to address him, already letting her momentum carry her heart higher, like the sensation on a good swing, legs stretched to the sky and head tilted back.

"Last one to the bedroom's a rotten egg," she says.

"Such a cheater!" he calls after her.

So what if she's on call? She can win a few crutch races while she waits to be pulled away.

* * *

"I can't go," she says flatly, not looking at him.

"But Ka-ate," he moans. It's not a whine; no, he can't help the growl under his words that belies the inflection of her name. He wants to whine, wants it to be that light and pathetic, but instead there's _weight _to it.

He really wants to get the hell out of here. Take her off somewhere and connect once more, make it just the two of them, like it used to be, instead of her and the boys, or even her and his daughter. He wants _them_.

"Kate. Come on. Bora Bora. My birthday. Some heat in the middle of winter."

"This research for your novel?" she says, a little too glib.

"Not that kind of heat," he answers, but there's no heat in that either. He wants it too much.

"I know it's expensive and you've already-"

"It's not the money," he mutters. "Who cares if I lose the money? I want to go away with you."

She squirms.

"Kate. We've been planning this for months," he tries. He hears the way his voice cracks and he hates it, but he is weary of being stuck in this loft. Crutches or not, he feels _fine_, and he wants Kate.

"Castle, I have no more vacation days," she says quietly.

_So quit. _He almost says it, flippant and stupid. But she looks at him again and his arguments die on his lips.

"I can't go," she states, still impossibly far away from him, standing in the doorway of his study while he's relegated to the couch once more. Stuck. Always stuck.

"You could. Just come with me."

"Castle." Tight voice, bare strings of her control.

"I thought you got fifteen days of vacation," he mutters back.

"Well, yes, technically. A week in Colorado, a week back here after your stunt-" she says 'stunt' like it's a dirty word "and now I have five days left. You want me here for Christmas Eve, Castle, or Thanksgiving? What about _my_ birthday? What about-"

"Fine," he cuts her off. The stab of disappointment is echoed sharply now by the brutal blank bluntness of her words. Five days for the whole rest of the year, and he's not good at delaying gratification because Christmas seems so far off. Besides she _wants_ to work on Christmas so what good does that do him?

He lifts his head to argue again, but she's come right up to the couch while he was busy being wounded, and she drops to her knees before him, her hands on his thighs. "Castle. I know you're disappointed. But don't you want to save Bora Bora for when this is out of our way?"

Her fingers slide under the velcro and the frustration clears from his head, travels south, makes a slow coil of need around the base of his spine. She doesn't fight fair.

"We'll do something else for your birthday. Something at home, just us. I'll make it special."

"You always make it special," he blurts out inelegantly, but that seems to do it anyway. Her smile lightens her eyes and she leans in to him, a soft and generous kiss that has her body following.

He lets her push him back into the couch, slides his fingers up under her shirt to feel the warm skin of her sides, the flare and flex of her abs. She settles carefully around him, avoiding his knee, and she's right.

Bora Bora is best left for when he's not so stuck, so restrained, because there are quite a lot of fantasies built up in his head for those beaches. But he really wants to go. He really wants Kate and sun and ocean and Kate and just - not this any more. He feels winter in his knitting bones and it's making him miserable. And he's afraid it makes him a misery to be with too.

"I can't take the day off, but I promise we'll celebrate your birthday in style," she whispers at his ear.

Stuck in a wheelchair? Sure. He wishes she had more vacation days. He wishes he hadn't broken his knee or even taken her snowboarding at all. How in the world can he wait until Christmas until - oh wait. She said _Christmas?_

He shifts away from her mouth and stares at her. "Does this mean you're planning to spend Christmas Eve with us? Full on Castle Christmas? Because that's what that sounded like. A promise to take the day off and be here."

She groans and drops her head against his chest; her words - when they come - are spoken right against his heart.

"Fine. Yes."

Christmas Eve. She's going to have Christmas Even with his family.

He really can wait. He's gotten so much better at waiting.

* * *

As she pulls on her clothes and slowly slides on her holster, she wonders if he's watching her from the bed. She imagines she feels his eyes trace her movements, imagines him sliding out from between the sheets with his usual grace to pull her back against him.

When she smiles to herself and turns around in his room, he's lying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. Awake but not present. And with that leg brace still on, there's not much chance of him sliding with grace to wrap around her.

"Castle," she calls to him.

"Yeah," he answers, monotone.

"I have to go. Do you... want some coffee before I leave?"

"No, you're already running late," he says. It's not meant to be hurtful but it hurts anyway. "Besides, I'm not in the mood for coffee. Think I should cut back. Getting kinda twitchy and I don't have any way to work it off."

Oh. She hesitates at the foot of the bed and adjusts the strap of her shoulder holster, reaches for her coat. She came straight in to bed last night from a long and fruitless foot search yesterday, and she's headed out early now to pick up where they left off.

"Okay," she says finally. "No coffee. Well."

"Have a good day at work," he says tonelessly. His head rolls to look at her but then he winces and presses his fingers down under the brace. "It itches again."

She leans forward and captures his fingers. "He said it means you're healing. I'll get you one of those backscratchers at the drug store."

"In the meantime," he sighs, and dislodges her grip to slide his fingers under the velcro again.

"You're not supposed to take it off," she warns, catching his hand.

He growls and shakes her loose, presses his palm to his eyes as he lays in bed. She knows he's frustrated, knows he's so tired of the leg brace and the restricted movement and everything.

She knows. But nothing seems to help.

She almost wishes for whiny and petulant because at least that is the Castle she knows. She doesn't know how to help quietly frustrated and darkly moody.

"You'll heal faster if you follow the doctor's instructions," she says finally, splaying her hand at his thigh and stroking down his sweatpants. "Sooner you heal, sooner this comes off."

"I know," he mutters and drops his hand. "I'll just stay here and sleep."

She steps back, checking the clock again; she really has to go. "Sleep," she says dully. "Okay. Well. Yeah. Only five."

"You think you can get out for lunch?" he asks, a glimmer in his voice.

No. But. "I'll see what I can do," she hedges, leaning in over him and kissing his forehead. She'll rearrange everything to get back to the loft at lunch for him.

"No, Kate," he sighs. "Don't do that. I'd rather you do what you need to do and come home for dinner instead."

She presses her palm to his chest as she lifts, a faint sliver working like a splinter in her heart. "Right. Okay. I'll make it home on time tonight."

He draws his hand over hers at his chest, squeezes. "Go to work, Kate."

She does. She glances once over her shoulder as she leaves the bedroom, sees him easing slowly onto his shoulder, his hand out over her side of the bed like he's going back to sleep. But his eyes never close.

She goes to work, but leaves her heart behind.


	10. Chapter 10

**Lean Wide Out the Window**

* * *

"What are you doing?" she asks him softly.

Castle turns his head from the wide windows and sees her approaching him cautiously. Like a wild animal. He feels like one - but caged and trapped though. Behind bars.

"Just," he shrugs, lets his eyes drift back out to the view. Buildings upon buildings like a whole mountain range, the pigeons his only company. "Trying to see if there's a secret code in the pattern of lights coming on and going off in that apartment across the street."

She laughs, and it lifts the gloom for a moment, makes him smile as he looks back at her.

"Secret code, huh, Castle?"

"Not really," he admits. "Just now came to me. But you know. Lives of others on display in living color."

"Better than tv?" she muses.

"I can't really see anything," he says. He turns his head because she's so much more interesting to look at. And because she's got a mug of coffee in her hands even though it's late, and her fingers curled around the ceramic like she needs the warmth. "You okay?"

She gives him a startled glance and perches on the edge of the dining room table, cradling the mug for a brief second before she sets it down. "I'm fine. I was just wondering about you."

"Better on the crutches," he says, trying to inject some hope in there. "Shaved a few seconds off my time."

She smiles again, lips together in that thin smile that isn't thin with meaning. It's not a faint smile, it's a suppressed smile, and he thinks the distinction is important.

He has the unreasonable thought that if she stayed with him all day in the loft while his knee heeled, he'd have a book written on her body language alone, catalogued and committed to memory.

She reaches out and ruffles his hair as the dark night creeps inside; her touch makes him close his eyes and lean into it, pretending he's just sitting down, pretending his knee bends, pretending he's not a wild thing in a cage.

Her kiss across his forehead makes his eyes startle open.

"I know this broken leg is like your own version of hell, Castle," she murmurs. It sounds like an apology, sounds like empathy and not pity. It's fascinating how Kate Beckett never sounds like she pities anyone; she is always compassionate, passionate, in feeling with him even back when she didn't want to be.

"It's not hell," he says, even though that's not really true. "You're here. It can't be hell."

She makes a soft sigh and kisses his eyelid this time, lips warm against the cool, thin skin. "That's kind of a beautiful thing to say."

"Does this mean I'm going to get lucky?" he grins.

She jerks back but even with the roll of her eyes, she's trying not to laugh. Oh, she's trying so hard not to laugh that little cracks widen up and break through anyway.

"Way to ruin the moment, Castle."

"But I'm still getting lucky."

Her fingers play at the nape of his neck, stroking, and it sends pleasant little shivers down his spine.

"We'll see," she says, but he knows that means, _You will._

"If I look longingly out the window for the next..." He trails off and checks an imaginary watch on his wrist. "Oh, about two hours? Will it mean I'll get _very_ lucky?"

She snorts but slides her butt over the arm of the wheelchair and settles firmly in his lap, a wriggle of her hips as she raises an eyebrow. "Let's skip the window gazing and morose patheticness and go straight to lucky, all right?"

"Oh, yes. That sounds _fun_."

Castle grips the wheels and spins them around - haltingly, but fast enough that she curls an arm around his neck, holds on. He grins to himself and rolls them down the hallway, careful of shadows that might catch his leg even as Kate's mouth begins a lovely, stirring trail down his neck.

"Wait. Did you call me pathetic?" he grumbles, pausing just before the bed and eyeing it.

"Focus, Castle."

"Yes, ma'am."

Still, he is a little pathetic. Because he can't figure out how exactly he can be smooth about this.

He sighs. There just isn't a way to seduce her - or let her seduce him - and also get into bed gracefully.

And that almost sucks the fun right out of it.

* * *

Fun.

He's right, she thinks as she lies in bed and tries to orient her mind towards another Saturday morning. At least she's not on call and the case is wrapped.

Skiing and snowboarding were fun until they weren't. But that kind of fun - the sharp turns of the mind, the planning as she scanned the mountain, the need for balance and agility and skill - that really is what makes her heart pound, gives her that thrill. Castle is the same; they're built alike in that at least.

They haven't been having a whole lot of fun together lately. Awkward and desperate can be fun, but those times are few and far between. And that's not what their whole relationship is based on (oh, though it certainly is fun).

Kate startles hard at the sound of the key in the lock and slips out of bed, hunting for a t-shirt, underwear, something. It's either Alexis or Martha and while his mother has been the soul of discretion, Alexis often comes _looking_. Which Kate appreciates on some level, since Alexis was the one who found her father when he fell because of the crutches.

She's just tugging her leggings into place when the knock sounds softly at the door; Kate leans out and adjust the blinds so that the morning light is shut out. Then she tiptoes to the bedroom door and slips out into the hallway with his daughter.

Alexis blushes but gives her space. "Hey. Sorry. I didn't realize you were home."

Four weeks ago it was _I didn't realize you were here._ Now it's _home._

Kate smiles and nods down the hall, leads the way as they head back for the living room. "Wrapped the case early," she explains.

"Oh, Dad was excited about that one," Alexis winces, light spilling across her hair and make it gold. "He talked non-stop. Did he ever get in touch with you again?"

Kate sighs and sinks onto the couch, pulls her knees up when Alexis mimics her. "No. We finished it before I realized he'd left me all those messages."

"He misses it," Alexis says, caution in her voice that Kate wishes the last few weeks had erased completely. But they'll get there.

"Yeah. And I'm not being as informative as he'd like-"

"Well, Kate," Alexis stutters, like she's trying not to laugh. "You are doing your _job_. He's being a baby."

Not as much as Alexis might think. "Still, I wish there was a way he could participate. He tried to facetime with me last week. Did you know that? It was not a success. Gates was about to kill me."

Alexis does laugh then, a lot freer. "I can imagine. Lanie said Dad's been calling her for autopsy results."

"Oh no," Kate groans. "Seriously? I missed that."

"She just told me today," the girl shrugs. "But really. Dad needs a hobby."

"Apparently the 12th _is_ his hobby."

"He does like to snoop," Alexis laughs again. They fall into companionable silence, Kate's thoughts drifting back to the man in bed and his eager mind, and just how much she really loves that, loves the way he just won't give up, the way he squirms and worms his way into the middle of things. He can never leave it alone. He always has to know.

"Oh." Kate takes a breath.

"What?" Alexis asks.

"Oh, his birthday."

"That's in like three weeks. April Fool's. You're good still," Alexis says quickly.

Kate snorts. "I know that. I mean. _For_ his birthday." She tilts her head and watches the morning light pattern over the building across the street, tries to collect the pieces of this idea that's coming in faintly like mist.

"What for his birthday?"

"Snooping," she says automatically.

"You mean a case?"

Is that what she means? "Yes. A case. How..."

"I just think if we can get him interested in a new hobby, then he won't be calling me every after class and asking me to come home and entertain him. Seriously, Kate, he asked for _soft shoe_ last week. He needs something to _do._"

Entertain him. A hobby. A case. "What hobby?" she mumbles, just to keep the conversation going. Something in this is coming together for her, something of Alexis's complaint and the edges of the morning light on the building's facade are coalescing into this _idea._

"I don't know. Something he can do here in the chair. Whatever. Bird-watching. I don't care."

Kate's gaze sharpens to the pigeon duck-walking across the window ledge, but there aren't that many birds in the city. Though Castle - trust him to spice ornithology up with-

"Oh, oh, wait," she breathes, sitting up sharply. "A case. Bird-watching. There was - once in Central Park, a guy who was bird watching got shot and..."

"What?" Alexis mutters. "I don't want Dad to get _shot_ bird-watching. And it's not like he can get to Central Park all that easily. I just figured, give him some binoculars and let his own overactive imagination take hold."

"Yes, _exactly_," Kate crows, jumping up from the couch and racing towards the dining room. She snatches her phone from the plug where she left it charging last night, checks the messages automatically, but she doesn't know what she's doing, what she's looking for, looking up online, except-

"We're going to... we need to harness that. His overactive imagination, his snooping." She squeezes her hand into a fist around her phone and it's there, all of it, so very clear that she stands stock still in the middle of his living room and can hardly breathe.

This must be what inspiration is, what having a _muse_does for him after weeks of frustration and nothing coming. What she does for him.

The whole tableau lights in front of her eyes, framed by the windows of the apartment across the street and - like a sign from the universe, like approval and benediction and blessing - she sees _For Lease_ plastered in the window dead ahead.

_Dead_ ahead. He needs a case.

"Everything's perfect," she gasps. "Alexis. Alexis. Oh, would Martha - do you think your grandmother would help?"

"Kate. Kate, help _what_?"

"The best trick ever," she grins. "For your dad's birthday."

It's what she does for him. Because she loves him.

* * *

Kate's making her coffee in the kitchen when Alexis initiates step one of the plan.

Castle handles the binoculars with reverent fingers and gives his daughter a smile that looks genuine. "Good idea, pumpkin."

"I figured it'd give you something to do," she shrugs, playing it off and picking up her bag. "I've got class in an hour. Gotta go. Love you."

Kate watches Alexis give Castle's cheek a kiss and then leave the loft; Castle is already lifting the binoculars to his eyes and peering out the window.

Play it cool, she reminds herself. Play it cool.

"Castle," she calls, pleased that her voice holds not a trace of her excitement. "You want some coffee before I have to leave?"

He's still staring through the window, scanning the binoculars side to side, and it takes a long time for him to finally pull his focus back to her.

He blinks, then smiles. "Yeah. Thanks."

And then he goes back to people-watching.

This is going to work.

This is really going to work.


End file.
